Scenario: A man is walking through a canyon at night that is covered by the stars. He looks up to see the stars glimmering, then looks down as he is walking; the dirt blowing upwards as he treads further and further into the mouth of the desert. A voice is then heard from atop one of the rocks enclosing the canyon near the man; the man stops in his tracks, for the story then begins (the most profound story I've ever written)!

Man: "Who is there?"

Shadow: "All that you can see."

Man: "Show yourself!"

Shadow: "Only if you show yourself."

Man: "I am standing right here. Are you blind? Do you need help?"

Shadow: "Yes."

Man: "Luckily I brought equipment so I could climb up the canyon in case it went on forever. It will take me a while to get up there. Are you injured?"

Shadow: "Yes..."

Man: Alright then, I will hurry on up! Let me set up the equipment. While I do that, you can tell me what happened to you."

Shadow: "I don't remember."

Man: "Surely you must remember something. What is your injury?"

Shadow: "Scars."

Man: "How long have you been up there?"

Shadow: "I don't remember."

Man: "Do you have a family?"

Shadow: "Yes."

Man: "Where do they live?"

Shadow: "Here."

Man: "Alright, everything is set up. I am making up my way up now. Just keep talking to me. Where is here?"

Shadow: "Here..."

Man: "Do you know where you are right now?"

Shadow: "Yes."

Man: "Where are you right now?"

Shadow: "Here...".

Man: "What do you mean by that?"

Shadow: "My family is here."

Man: "Is... Your family dead?"

Shadow: "I don't know."

Man: "How did you get here?"

Shadow: "My family."

Man: "What... Did your family abandon you?"

Shadow: "I don't know."

Man: "What's your most favorite thing in the whole world?"

Shadow: "The stars."

Man: "What about them makes them your favorite thing in the whole world?"

Shadow: "The secrets."

Man: "I'm almost there. Keep talking to me. What secrets?"

Shadow: "Secrets that we cannot see."

Man: "What secrets?"

Shadow: "Secrets that become shadows through stars."

Man: "What shadows?"

Shadow: "Shadows that turn us into shadows."

Man: "What do you mean?"

Shadow: "Shadows that see themselves in other shadows."

Man: "You're speaking with poetry. It's hard to understand you. Can you tell me what you mean in a way I can understand you?"

Shadow: "Stars create shadows. Shadows create light."

Man: "I finally made it! Where are you. I hear your voice, but I don't see you."

Shadow: "I am here."

Man: "Where?"

Shadow: "Here."

Man: "Where is here?"

Shadow: "Here...".

Man: "Alright. I am here to help you, there's no need to fear me. I came here to save you. I climbed all the way up here to rescue you. Now tell me, where are you?"

Shadow: "Down here."

Man: "..."

Shadow: "Who is there?"

Man: "..."

Shadow: "Luckily I brought equipment so I could climb up the canyon in case it went on forever. It will take me a while to get up there. Are you injured?"

Man: "..."

Shadow: "Alright then, I will hurry on up! Let me set up the equipment. While I do that, you can tell me what happened to you."

Man: "..."

Shadow: "How long have you been up there?"

Man: "..."

Shadow: "What is your most favorite thing in the whole world? My favorite thing in the whole world is the stars."

Man: "...That voice..."

Shadow: "I am almost there."

Man: "My family..."

Shadow: "Hold on! The ground is experiencing tremors! Don't let go!"

Man: "My family died here..."

Shadow: "Don't look down!"

Man: "No! My family died here when I was a child! A man tried to save them, but it was too late. The ground gave in. I was only a child! The man managed to save me, but my parents fell to their death! How are you... Who are you..."

Shadow: "Get away from the edge... boy! I am on my way!"

Man: "No, this time I am going to look over the edge and face reality that was taken away from me!"

The Man's younger self surrounded by the bodies of his parents, kneeling over them with his head down, then looking up at the man atop the canyon rock: "You have ran away from me your whole life. You abandoned me. I never abandoned you, like you never wanted to abandon your parents. The man that put his own life on the line to save us, was abandoned by you."

Shadow: "I am sorry! I was scared! I didn't know what to do when my parents never came back. I didn't know what happened. I didn't know pain. I didn't know darkness! I was alone. I was broken. Please forgive me! I ask of you to understand from the depths of my darkness there was no compass to aid my journey after my teachers and creators were taken away from me! I was abandoned by nature! To think that we were so close to saving my family and making it back home, just makes me want to jump off of this cliff right now! To meet the same fate as my parents did!

The Man's younger self smiling upon the Man: "If you jump off that cliff, you're still holding onto your darkness. If you choose to stay, to live life fully, you have the strength to let go of all that keeps you from choosing what you deserve in life! You came here tonight because deep down you were ready to face yourself. Hold onto what you still have with the strength of that man who tried to save your parents and the strength your parents gave to hold on for dear life! Jumping off that cliff now will disrespect the strength, the honor and the living spirit of your parents and that man! There's no need to jump off that cliff, if you were already dead inside! You only want to because you blame yourself for what happened that day. If you jump off that cliff, you will not live to blame yourself for the one and only thing you should blame yourself for! You came here not as a dead man, but as a man of the stars. The only thing that makes you not realize this is your fear and doubt. Let go of it - there are times letting go is the enemy of life and letting go is the strength of life! You need to choose which is harder to know when letting go and holding on is life or death!"

Enlightened Man: "All this time I punished myself for that day, so much that I forgot about it. I abandoned you. I abandoned my parents. I let something destroy my life that I didn't have the power to hold onto. I let something I could not see consume me, just as it did to my parents. It was all me - I was the tremors, life was the land and my experience was my family and that man holding on to it. I let go, as they held on. It was all me for death - it was all them for life. Thank you..."

Disappearing younger version of the Man: "You came here to save me, as that man came to save you and your parents.

Reading this made me think of 46 and 2 and a lot of other stuff too. It's hard to realize how hard it is to loss your parents, especially at a young age or when you are closer than you think. But you are right about holding on and living for the strength that we hold over dying because of the pain caused and feared. Thank You for expressing your self in this way.